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Thursday, June 14, 2012
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Argentina renews Falklands assault at UN UNITED NATIONS (AFP) Thirty years to the day after the end of the Falklands War, President Cristina Kirchner yesterday led an Argentine task force to UN headquarters to reopen diplomatic hostilities with Britain. Kirchner headed a delegation of more than 90 diplomats and officials in an assault on the UN decolonization committee to again put her country's claim to sovereignty of the South Atlantic islands. Britain refuses to take part in the 24-country committee. But two Falklands lawmakers -- a quarter of the governing legislative assembly -- will resist and put the case that the 3,000 population want to remain under the British flag. The Falklands government announced Tuesday that it will
hold a referendum on its political status in 2013 in a new bid to end any dispute on what the people want. The UN committee has debated the Falklands each year for more than four decades. The visit by Argentina's nationalist leader has surprised iswill be the first head of state to address what is a relatively low level UN committee. Some diplomats say Kirchner is taking advantage of the emotion of the 30th anniversary of the 74-day war in which 649 Argentine and 255 British soldiers died. The Falklands remains a national cause in Argentina, which is supported by South American nations, and diplomatic tensions have been rising again in recent months.
Support for marijuana legalization growing in U.S
NEW YORK, NY - Marijuana legalization advocates and members of community groups attend a rally against marijuana arrests in front of One Police Plaza on June 13, 2012 in New York City. The New York City Council is set to vote on a resolution that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana in public view. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has urged the state's lawmakers to pass the law which many say leads to the arrests of a disproportion of minority youths. (AFP PHOTO)
Obama favored for reelection... in Europe and Japan WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama would cruise to reelection in November if Europeans and Japanese could vote, but his popularity is slipping in China and Muslim nations, according to a poll out yesterday. A month-long, 21-nation survey by the Pew Research Center found approval of Obama has sharply declined since he took office in early 2009, and US economic clout is increasingly seen to be waning, even among key US allies in Europe. But despite some general disappointment with the president's policies, Europeans fervently support his re-election, including in France, where 92 percent of respondents want to see a second Obama term. Nearly nine in 10 Germans also favor his reelection, along with 73 percent of British respondents. Some 72 percent of Brazilians also want to see Obama re-elected as do two thirds of Japanese respondents. Such numbers would be a godsend for Obama domestically, where he is locked in a neck-and-neck battle with Republican challenger Mitt Romney. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll put Obama ahead 47-43 percent against his rival. Obama is facing strong opposition in some key spots overseas, Pew said. In China, confidence in Obama has plunged by 24 points and approval of his policies has dropped 30 points. Just 31 percent of Chinese want Obama reelected, compared with 39 percent who do not. And in Russia, a country with which the Obama administration pledged to "reset" troubled relations, 25 percent are in favor of his re-election and 27 percent opposed. Even in Europe, where sup-
port is high, confidence in Obama has dropped by six points, from 86 to 80 percent, since 2009. There is broader opposition to Obama in the Muslim world, where criticism of US foreign policy runs high even after the administration's support for last year's pro-democracy protests in Egypt and elsewhere. In Lebanon, 62 percent do not want four more years of Obama. In Jordan the figure is 73 percent, and in Egypt it rises to a startling 76 percent. "America's image is more positive than it was before Obama came in office, in Eu-
rope, in Brazil, in Japan, in some parts of the world," Richard Wike, associate director of Pew's Global Attitudes Project, told AFP. "In many Muslim countries we haven't seen the same Obama effect on America's image that we've seen elsewhere." But the United States still fares better in the eyes of the world now than four years ago. America's image "is certainly more positive today than it was during the last year of the Bush administration, and President Obama gets higher ratings than president Bush just about everywhere," Wike said.
HONDURAS, Tegucigalpa : A bullet is seen next to the corpse of a woman who was suffocated with adhesive tape to the mouth and nose and which at first sight appeared to have no gunshot wounds, in Tegucigalpa, on June 13, 2012. Tegucigalpa, along with the northern city of San Pedro Sula -- known as the Crime Capital -- are two of the world's most violent cities. (AFP PHOTO)